The Gruffalo's Child | New Theatre Cardiff

Today has been a rare treat, a mummy & Squidge day out together. Seeing as he's nearly 4, he feels the right sort of age to start to enjoy the theatre. We've taken him to a couple productions before (Goldilocks ballet & Ben & Holly) but that was a year ago and he was really too young to enjoy it.

So when The New Theatre got in touch to invite us along to review The Gruffalo's Child, we jumped at the change! As Dot is only 11 months old he is totally the wrong age to go - if he was younger, he could have just lay in our arms, or older, he could enjoy it, but he'd have just wanted to get down and walk/crawl. So just Squidge and I went, and made a proper little trip of it.

We started off heading out at 9:30am, with my fresh driving independence (passed 7th June), I drove us to the park & ride that's 20 mins away (to save us parking and driving into the city centre), and we had a fun little bus ride into town. From there we went straight to the Theatre, picked up a little stuffed Gruffalo's Child (£12!), some sweets and headed to our seats.

The stage looked fantastic, simple, but practical and enchanting. The woods backdrop reversed to reveal the Gruffalo's cave, and the tree's you can see moved about the stage as well. We waited patiently for the show to begin.

Up until this point we'd been big fans of The Gruffalo, having read it to Squidge as a bedtime story for years, but we hadn't read The Gruffalo's Child. I'd headed over to Asda on Friday and picked up a copy, we read it lots before the play so it felt familiar.

The show kicked off with three actors who play all the characters (I wish I had photo's here to show you!), and their costumes were great! What I really liked is that through story of the Gruffalo explaining to The Gruffalo's Child how he'd met the mouse, it was like a recap of The Gruffalo story.

There were lots of songs and audience participation (which Squidge tells me was his favourite part (clapping slow, then faster!)) which help keep the kids engaged. I loved the bit with the fox as the music went all ska-like.

The show itself lasted an hour with no intermission. Personally, we'd have preferred it to either be shorter, or have an intermission as Squidge really struggled when we got to about half hour in.

The show was great, well produced and entertaining. The only thing that would have improved it for us, would have been it being a little shorter.

Once that was over, we headed to St Davids 2 to get Squidge some ice cream, we were heading to the Gelato place, but as we got there it had gone, and in it's place was a Thai-style ice cream place, I gave him the choice of that or a Krispy Kreme donut, he wanted ice cream.

After that I took him for another surprise, to the Build-a-bear workshop for his first bear. I told him he could pick any bear he liked, and he went straight for Skye :) We accessorised her with some clothes and her jet pack, and carried her home, Squidge absolutely adores her :) 

After that, we headed straight home on the park & ridge bus, absolutely shattered, but happy :) 

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*The tickets to the Gruffalo's Child were gifted for an honest review